Next Level with one more month to go

[humbled4real]

My practice test show that I am just not ready for a July 21st sitting, so I decided to reschedule my 3rd attempt to August 18. This gives me an additional 5 weeks to study. After 4 weeks, I have not reached the 500 mark on any practice test and obviously that has been frustrating. I need to be in the 600's and need to focus on concept.

My study strategy:

Study M-F from 5pm-8pm, Sat 10-2pm
Practice Test Sunday - 8am

Materials:
MGMAT - SC, Numbers Properties, Geometry and Word Translations
OG - 11th Edition, Verbal and Quant Review books
Princeton Review - Cracking the GMAT 2004
Error Log

I've gotten progressively better on Practice tests, going from a
420 - Q24, V24(GMATprep 1)
460 - Q27, V28(GMATprep 2)
470 - Q29, V27(GMATprep 1) - reset)

My timing on Quant is poor which I'm sure contributes to the easy bin questions, and although I'm good with SC, I really need to focus my on RC and CR strategy.

Can I go from a 470 to a 600+ in 5 weeks? I feel I can, I just need some suggestions.

Any thoughts?

[orenbusuk]

I received two very good pieces of advice when I started my prep.

1) Focus on mastering the basics
Practicing the toughest questions alone isn't going to be much help if there are gaps in your content knowledge. Focus on mastering concepts and making sure you're not making careless mistakes by reviewing your practice CATs. Once this is done, you can move on to the harder questions.

If there are any gaps in your quant knowledge, this suggestion will help boost your scores.


2) Always practice with a stopwatch/timer
Timing is a big issue on the GMAT. Try and get your timing down to about 2 mins per quant question and 1.5 mins per verbal question. The only way to get a feel for this on actual test day is through lots of practice under timed conditions.

You mentioned RC and CR. For RC, I tend to summarize what I read as I go along....that helped me maintain focus. For CR, some of my friends love the Powerscore CR bible, tho I didn't really rely on it.

Good luck!

[humbled4real]

I received two very good pieces of advice when I started my prep.

1) Focus on mastering the basics
Practicing the toughest questions alone isn't going to be much help if there are gaps in your content knowledge. Focus on mastering concepts and making sure you're not making careless mistakes by reviewing your practice CATs. Once this is done, you can move on to the harder questions.

If there are any gaps in your quant knowledge, this suggestion will help boost your scores.


2) Always practice with a stopwatch/timer
Timing is a big issue on the GMAT. Try and get your timing down to about 2 mins per quant question and 1.5 mins per verbal question. The only way to get a feel for this on actual test day is through lots of practice under timed conditions.

You mentioned RC and CR. For RC, I tend to summarize what I read as I go along....that helped me maintain focus. For CR, some of my friends love the Powerscore CR bible, tho I didn't really rely on it.

Good luck!

This is perfect. Thank you for replying. I recognized that my biggest issues in Quant are with basic Ratio, Rate/Work DS questions. I also struggle with Probability and Combinatorics. Yesterday I spent 3 hours reviewing my error logs and reworking the problems I got wrong. So I agree with your strategy.

As for Verbal, I picked up from an earlier posting to take notes on RC so that I minimize the amount of time I spend going back to the passage. this will only get better with practice in my opinion. So far it seems to work. With CR, some of my mistakes have been careless. Learning to recognize the type of questions (ie - weaken, assumption, strengthen, etc) is helpful, but sometimes I get careless and choose the opposite. So again practice and double checking.

[orenbusuk]

No problem. Try to practice and review consistently. Frequent short periods over the week are better than long stretches over the weekend. The former is definitely the way to go if your schedule permits!